With no more than that, the ear buds were back in and she was back to work.
I decided to look it up online when I got back to Sandra’s house. If only I could figure out how to spell Gevaudan.
I called the management company for the apartment building and let them know that I would be taking the “quit” option of “Pay or Quit”, which they didn’t particularly want to hear. I was told that I would owe even more money for breaking the lease. I cheerily agreed and promised to eventually pay it.
I felt surprisingly lighter after the phone call, like things would actually be okay.
And then I ran into Simon on the way to fill out the paperwork.
When he saw me he froze for a split second like a deer in headlights before he recovered. His eyes passed over me again as if he didn’t recognized me.
I stopped my car a few steps ahead of him and rolled the window down. Apparently realizing that he was busted, Simon trotted to my window.
“Hello, Jade.”
“Hello, Simon.”
"You cut your hair. It looks nice."
Long, awkward pause.
I sighed.
“Get in the car,” I said.
He looked at me, dumbfounded. “What?”
“Get in,” I said.
Surprisingly, he did. After I made such a crazy fool of myself the last time we’d met, I wouldn’t have been surprised if he never wanted to see me again.
“How was the burger?”
I smiled. Like I’d never flipped out at all. “It was delicious.”
“Are you taking me somewhere so you can leave me dead in a ditch?”
“Probably,” I said.
I didn’t actually know where I was going until I ended up outside of city hall. The little park area there was familiar, with a circle of orange trees that I had known and watched shrink from a lush orange grove since I was a kid travelling back and forth between our home and my parents’ jobs. It wasn’t as fantastic as Simon’s spot, but it was a place where the grass was always green and sometimes you could find a low hanging orange from one of the tall trees.
We didn’t get out of the car.
“I keep seeing these impossible things,” I said, looking straight ahead. I couldn’t bear to look into his eyes while I said it. I could hardly bear to say it.
“Let’s not do this again,” he said softly.
For a heartbeat, I thought that I might actually be crazy, that none of it was real. Then, without really thinking about it, I pulled the little vial out of my pocket and opened it. I put my finger over the hole, inverted it, righted it again. I saw his nostrils flare. He shrank back and I knew I had him.
“You know,” I said quietly. “You know everything.”
From the corner of my eye, I noticed his hand creeping for the handle. In a move that was part slap, part grab, I hit him in the face with the droplet.
He screamed as smoke rose and a little line of his skin melted away like I had just hit him with acid.
I wished I could take it back.
He turned and let out an inhuman snarl that made me back into the car door. I was an idiot for trying that. I was worse than an idiot. I hurt him, and for what? So he would admit the things I already knew?
“Fine,” he said, holding up his hands. “I’ll tell you everything, but not here.”
“No,” I said coldly. All of my remorse for hurting him was gone with the memory of how I had acted out, embarrassing myself, thinking that I was completely insane because he let me think that. “Here. Now.”
“Fine,” he said again, his gloved hand hovering near his newly burned face. “I’m-.”
“Go on.” I spoke with a cold confidence, still holding the vial casually in one hand.
“You’re really going to make me say it?” He looked at me from behind his hand. I looked away. It would only make me feel crazier if I was right about everything.
“If it was that big a secret you shouldn’t have let me see it.”
“I saved your life, and I ruined my hands doing it!”
“So it was you,” I heard myself say wonderingly.
“I had to,” he said. “A human in trouble, and so close; I had to.”
"You could have let me die."
"We can't- I can't do that. If a hu- if a person is going to die I have to do everything I can to protect them."
"Why?"
"It's in my blood."
I looked down at the pale smear of blood on my fingertip and the fresh burn across his face. "The- the man said this was his blood."
"What man?"
Something stopped me from saying his name. "There was a man outside the window of my apartment the other night. He left me a present at work. He said that this was his blood. He said that it was magical. He said that if I drank it, it would do stuff."
"Did you?" He asked, eyes wide with concern.
"No. What would happen if I did?"
"Well, you saw what happened to me."
"That's not what happened to me, though." I lifted my shirt to show him the broken slashes.
He winced when he saw them and looked mildly disgusted, like he might ask me to put it away.
"It can heal you on the outside," he said. "But it changes you. It makes you theirs."
"Whose?" I was dying for him to say it, to say something bluntly. One of us had to be the lunatic to say it out loud- I didn’t want it to be me.
"Theirs. Can you put that away now?"
He indicated the vial and I hurried to put the stopper back in and shoved my whole fist into my pocket. I hesitantly withdrew my hand, leaving the vial behind. "Sorry."
Another long silence. Our relationship was full of silences.
Our relationship?
I looked through the window over the sparse trees and the big squat building and saw the moon. It was big and white, already visible in the sky before the sun set.
"Full moon," I said. "Shouldn't you be baying at it or something?"
He looked almost hurt until he noticed the smirk on my face. Then he smiled. "Not yet."
"So what happens when the moon is full?" I reached for his hand, which he gave willingly, and with both of mine I started to pull the glove off.
"All the crazies come out?"
I looked up at him, just a brief look of annoyance. His defenses were always up. Could I blame him? If I was something different it would take all night for someone to make me admit it. All night of them showing me video and pictures and undisputable evidence that I was something else. And even then I might not bring myself to say it out loud.
Under the glove, his fingers were delicately bandaged, a thin strip of gauze wrapped carefully around each digit. I started to uncoil it. "What really happens?"
He reached for my face with his free hand and turned it toward his. "I turn into a monster."
My hands froze.
"I'm a werewolf."
I wanted to laugh. I wanted to cry. I wanted to shout my relief that even if I was crazy, I wasn't alone. I wanted to ask a thousand questions. Part of me was repulsed and another part was intrigued. After what felt like an eternity, I went back to slowly unwrapping his hand.
"Thank you," I breathed.
He seemed to relax. Maybe it was because I didn't scream and cry and run away or laugh and call the police. Maybe it was because he'd carried it for so long.
"How long have you been a-?" I couldn't say it. I forced my mouth to say it. He said it, now I had to. "Werewolf?"
"I was born one," he said. "It’s not a disease. You don't just catch it, and you don’t cure it. It’s what I am."
I looked down at the puckered, wrinkled flesh that covered his bones. Swirls of shining pink scar tissue made it look fake, like a movie prop. I raised it to my face and gently kissed his fingertips. I heard him draw a shaky breath and I looked up into his eyes.
He was a part of the night like the black shadow trees and the stars. He was another promise of safety and contentment. His eyes weren't j
ust brown, they were many shades of brown, all reaching out warmly from the blackness of his pupils. A flash of dimple appeared when he swallowed.
"Jade," he began in a voice barely above a whisper. "I should go."
I did not release him. Instead, I leaned toward him, pressing my foot into the floor, leaning over the center console, and put my face close to his. "You owe me this," I said quietly.
He let his covered hand reach up to touch my neck. "I saved your life and I owe you?"
I reached up and put my hand on his neck. Coarse stubble met smooth skin, and I let my fingertips travel slowly down to his chest. "You saved my life. You let the other ones into my life. You let me act like a crazy woman.” I put my face close to his until our noses touched. “You saved my life and then you ruined it."
"I'm sorry." He breathed the words insincerely against my lips. My heart was beating in my ears as I started to close the miniscule gap that separated our mouths.
I could almost taste his lips when a voice startled me.
"No, no, no. You don't understand. It was all a hoax."
I jumped back into my own seat, looking around. Simon reached over and switched the radio off.
I laughed and sighed, relieved that I had just hit the knob with my elbow, wondering why I had been so jumpy about it. I licked my lips, still smiling at Simon. My heart was still racing.
“I’m getting that thing uninstalled.”
He smiled back and leaned over to kiss me when someone knocked on the passenger window.
We both looked over to see a bulky bald headed man with a tire iron in his hand.
My mouth dropped open in fear.
"Ey!" the man said in an accented voice. "Open the door, homie, and I won't kill your pretty girlfriend."
Someone knocked on my window then, a goatee and thick bushy eyebrows nearly filling up the window.
"We'll just take your car," the first man continued.
"And your woman," said a third, approaching the windshield. This one was skinny and he carried a baseball bat. He leapt onto the hood of my car and squatted in front of the windshield, making faces.
Other hands started banging on the trunk and taunts rose up from all around. I willed myself to stay strong and not cry. It didn't work long. Tears welled and fell and I wanted it to stop. The banging and taunting made it sound like there were twenty of them.
"Go away!" I screamed. I realized just how much like a child I was; bold until the minute something scary happened, then I lost all resolve and went crying for a protector. "Simon!"
He reached for the door handle.
"No!" My voice had gone high with panic.
He turned toward me and something in his eyes calmed me. "Don't worry, Jade. I can't let them hurt you."
"They can hurt you too, you know!"
He smirked, perfect white teeth gleaming. There was something vicious in that smirk. "No, they can't."
"What are they?" I asked desperately. I wanted them to be something different, vampires or monsters or chupacabra, anything but human. Simon’s world was full of monsters. I couldn’t deal with the human kind, too.
"They're stupid, that’s what they are," Simon said, and pulled the handle.
As soon as the door was open, the first man reached in to pull Simon out. Simon went, but when the man tried to swing the tire iron around to hit Simon he found himself flat on the pavement. Two more rushed forward to take his place.
I was pulled out of the car and shoved from one man to another, then another and another until I was dizzy. Shouts and taunts in English and Spanish rose and fell as I was pushed around. I didn't fight. I could only see flashes of Simon and the others fighting.
A punch to my ribs knocked the wind out of me. I crumpled to the asphalt. They must have gotten bored with my quiet spinning.
When I recovered, I realized that wasn't the case. There were six of them. Three were sprawled on the ground and I thought that one of them might be dead. The three that had been pushing me around were attacking Simon. They jumped on and off of the car, swinging bats and a piece of rebar. Simon, who hovered over them, swung round, wielding a baseball bat of his own.
I saw one of the fallen men reaching for the tire iron and I felt hot white rage flow through my veins. I kicked his hand and picked it up. Before his hand flopped back to the ground I swung and the heavy metal caught him across the top of his head. He went limp. I felt sick, but I looked to Simon.
He was still snarling and whirling, fighting off three men at once. They danced back and forth, not even noticing me. It made me think of bull baiting. They were the curs and Simon the bull.
I ran up behind one of them and brought the tire iron down across his face. The heavy end caught him across the jaw and he fell like a sack of flour. The other two weren't much of a challenge for Simon and he had them both subdued within a few seconds.
The whole encounter couldn't have lasted more than a minute.
Before I had the time to process the scene around us I heard the soft scrape of metal against the ground.
A gun.
I leapt forward and brought the tire iron straight down across the head of the one who had pulled the gun out. I brought it down again and again until I heard Simon shout my name. I don’t know how many times he said it before I finally heard him.
I killed him, I thought. My whole body went cold.
The man grunted and tried to move and I raised the thing again.
Simon caught it before I killed the man for real.
"Stop," Simon said. "It’s over."
He gathered me in his arms and I nodded, blinking back tears. I couldn't cry again. I couldn't just keep crying about everything. I had to keep it together. His warm arms enveloped me, holding my head to his chest. With one ear to his chest and the other pressed by his arm, I could only hear his heartbeat. I listened to the blood moving through him. When his racing heartbeat slowed, and mine with it, I pushed myself away from his chest. I looked around at the moaning and silent men littered around the empty parking lot, who were so loud only minutes earlier. I wiped my face with my bare wrist.
"We should find some rope," I said.
chapter 7
"Have you seen this yet?" Bob asked. He looked left and right before opening a browser window on his computer.
Shannon didn’t even look up. "Yes."
When the page loaded, I saw a very clear picture of the sidewalk outside of City Hall. Closest to the camera. There was a somewhat blurry, angry looking man tied to a lamp post. Beyond him in crisp detail, a second man glared at the camera, his torso bound to a wooden telephone pole. Beyond him, blurred and smaller, was another man tied to a metal sign post. In the background were three more, tiny and blurred, all in a neat line. They each had a cardboard sign around their necks, suspended with string.
"I tried to steal the wrong car."
I smiled.
"Did you watch the video?" Shannon asked.
I stopped smiling. Video? Bob closed the window suddenly. Shaun walked by, doing his morning patrol.
"Look it up on your phone later," Shannon said, before her earbuds went in. "The chick looks like you with your new hair."
I wasn't sure I wanted to see it, but at lunch I took my new phone out of my pocket. I didn’t have to worry about what to search for.
A text message from Sandra with a glowing blue link was already open on the screen.
"Holy shit, lady you're famous!" it said.
I tapped the link to see a surveillance video from the courthouse across the street. It caught the men creeping toward the car and most of the fighting. A trio of leaves in one corner obscured the car and occasionally rustled but never revealed more than a glimpse of white. Most of the video was of the men dancing toward and away from Simon while he turned around, watching them warily. Then one rushed in and Simon caught him with one hand, lifting him up and slamming him on the ground. The other tried to hit him when he was distracted and Simon jumped out of the way of the blow,
grabbed the bat and elbowed the man in the face. A single punch sent the man sprawling. Then the three men rushed at him and it seemed to start all over. I was shocked when I saw myself come out of nowhere with the tire iron glinting for the camera. I watched myself knock one man out and beat another almost to death. Then Simon grabbed my wrist and I realized how small I looked next to him. The embrace that had felt so long lasted only a few seconds before we took the legs of one man and the video stopped.
I glanced over the comments and opened a "remix" video dubbed over with techno. I laughed out loud when the techno beat gave way to the Mexican Hat Dance with a sped up video of the men jumping forward and back toward Simon. When the video Jade rushed forward, the techno stopped again and some heavy metal growler screamed. A heavy drum beat and fast guitar accompanied my pulverizing the man who had the gun. I texted Sandra back.
"She stole my hairstyle!"
After a short text conversation, Sandra said that she was making dinner and that I had to be there. I agreed.
When I checked my phone after work I had a new text message from a phone number that was not in my address book.
"We're on the news."
I stared at it for a long time before calling the number.
"Hello, Jade," Simon's warm voice greeted me.
"Hello, Simon." I smiled. Shannon nodded a farewell as she passed me and climbed into her mom's car.
"Have you seen the video?" he asked.
"Of course," I said. "Have you seen the remix?"
He laughed. It was a deep warm sound, even through the phone. "Which one?"
I smiled. "That's pretty crazy. I wonder who those people were that did it."
"So do the cops," Simon said. "The couple is wanted for questioning."
My smile faded. "The couple? What for?"
"Who knows," he said dismissively. "Doesn't concern us."
I smiled again. If we were going to be caught it would have happened already.
Right?
"You're right, it doesn't. Hey, what are you doing tonight?"
"It’s a full moon tonight."
"Oh."
"I'm not doing anything." I heard the smile in his voice and could practically see his dimples.
The Beast Page 6
